


beast of a burden

by sapphicish



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season/Series 05, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: In the end, she leaves Nick.





	beast of a burden

**Author's Note:**

> this was written in a haze directly after i finished watching only their scenes in s5 and, after staying up for nearly 24 hours straight because of it, became entirely too determined to believe that they were soulmates in every single sense of the word. enjoy

In the end, she leaves Nick.

It's treated with more gentleness from him than Grace wants. With more understanding. With a look in his eyes that lingers and makes her realize that he knows something about it all that she doesn't and she has no idea what it is and doesn't dare to ask. A part of her wants, desperately, for him to yell. A part of her wants him to shout at her, to call her terrible things, to throw things at her and tell her all about just how terrible of a person she is and has always been.

A part of her wants.

He doesn't do any of those things. He takes the ring back when she offers it, and he kisses her on the cheek, and he leaves. And Grace sits out on the beach, watching the tides roll back and push out again, and she wants to do that. Wants to step out into the water and sink with it, until she's submerged, until she's gone – gone, gone, gone, the ache in her head and the ache in her hands and the ache in her chest all vanishing with her.

Instead, she looks over her shoulder at the house and sees Frankie waiting for her, this comforting figure like life itself just waiting in the distance, and she stands and makes the walk back.

  
  


  
  


“Hey,” Frankie says lightly when she returns, sliding an arm loosely around her shoulders and guiding her into the house. They both leave tracks of sand in their wake, falling from Frankie's multicolored shawl and from the backs of Grace's thighs, and she feels almost like she's still back there, surrounded by damp sand and cool fresh air and the roaring of the waves. 

Frankie makes her feel that way. Not always, but often. Peaceful and on the edge of something. And peaceful. So peaceful, like she can fall down and be caught, like she can pretend she has no strength left in her limbs and Frankie will hold her up and tell her that it's all right.

She'd never do that, of course. But she feels like she could, and that makes all the difference.

“Hey,” Grace echoes, feels the way it reverberates in her chest like a gong – empty, cold, soft. _Hey. I'm sorry. Hey. Thank you. Hey. Stay with me. Hey. I need a martini and a sedative and another martini._

Frankie sits down with her on the couch and Grace only protests briefly because of the sand, Frankie comes back with a loud, dismissive huff of air and a wave of a hand and something about how sofas are fleeting but sand is our friend and it doesn't make sense to Grace, really, it doesn't. And somehow it does, all at once, all at the same time.

Frankie curls up next to her, nuzzles into her side, gentle and quiet for once. It's good. Frankie is good, the way you don't expect her to be right when you need it the most, and it's rare and it's good.

“You okay?” she asks.

Grace scoffs. “Yeah,” she says, but her eyes sting. “Yes. Why wouldn't I be? It's—you know, he and I never would have...”

Frankie doesn't press her for more when she trails off, just rubs a hand up and down her arm, across the length between her shoulders, down her spine. It makes Grace want to cry even more. But she doesn't.

“You know,” Frankie says, “I hope you didn't do all of that because you thought you had to.”

“You mean for you,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“No. I didn't do it for you.” Frankie's hand pauses on her back, pressed there warm and solid and real in the middle, and Grace half-thinks she might just fall apart if not for that, if not for that one small thing keeping her steady and close. “I did it for...me. And for Nick. And...and for you. Yes. Because everything I've ever learned and everything I've ever known or thought just comes down to one thing, all the time.”

Frankie hums softly in the back of her throat, and Grace almost leans in to it, but keeps herself from doing that because if her foggy mind had its way she'd have her head pressed to Frankie's chest, listening to her heartbeat and feeling the rise and fall of it against her cheek. If it had its way she would fall asleep here and now because she's so goddamned tired.

“Grace,” Frankie whispers a minute after.

“What?”

“Are you gonna leave me hanging or are you gonna tell me what the one thing is?”

Grace snorts. Her chest hitches, breath catching with laughter, and then she thinks – shit. Shit, because if she laughs she might end up crying and she really, really doesn't want to cry, so she stops, swallows all that painful laughter down, and breathes until she's sure she can safely speak again without something terrible and embarrassing happening, like her voice breaking or a sob leaving in place of words.

“It's like I said on the beach. I need you. At the end of the day, being around you, it makes me happier than anything else ever has. Ever. That's...it. That's the one thing. And I want to be that same person for you, too. I want us to stay together, here, and I want to keep waking up to those ridiculous noises you make when you're meditating, and that's all I want. Or need.”

Grace doesn't want to, _really_ doesn't want to, but she finds herself looking at Frankie anyway. She does, as she'd expected she would, immediately regret it. The look on her face is _too much,_ warm and teary-eyed and smiling and she looks a lot like she's going to spontaneously kiss her and Grace isn't entirely sure it would be anywhere other than on the mouth, and she's not really prepared for that either.

“That was really romantic, Grace,” Frankie says in a way that's like saying: I'm kidding, and I'm not kidding. This is a joke and not a joke.

“Well,” Grace says, air leaving her in a shuddering sigh. It's close now, she can feel it, and Frankie doesn't look or feel like she's going to let her go anytime soon, so she's just going to be crying in her arms minutes from now and that isn't something that she looks forward to at all. “I didn't mean it to be romantic, but I...meant it.”

“The sincerity of it all makes it even more romantic,” Frankie says solemnly, then kisses her loudly on the cheek and pulls her even closer.

Grace laughs, and that's the mistake that skews her estimation, throws it off: she laughs, and the laugh turns into a sob, and the sob turns into more laughter, and then she's trying to catch her breath and failing, and Frankie is holding her and saying that it's all right to cry because it's just the inevitable release of a body's pent-up emotional tension and we both know you have a lot of that, Grace, and –

Grace sniffles. “Frankie.”

“Yes, Grace?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

  
  


  
  


She wakes up in the dark, in the same place on the same couch, fingers laced through Frankie's. A bushy head is shoved under her chin and soft snores are muffled against her collarbone and arms are wrapped loosely around her shoulders and, God, she thinks Frankie is drooling through her blouse. She could give into her disgusted instinct and wake her up just to scold her for it, but instead she holds her breath and counts the seconds as she carefully, gently, slowly pushes her away, making sure her rest isn't disturbed. 

It works and Grace is free in the dark silence, standing there looking down at Frankie, not sure of where to go and what to do, shaking the numbness from her limbs. Her gaze strays to the door, to the windows, to all the glass between her and the ocean. She counts the steps to the door; one, two, three, tiny quiet steps to keep Frankie from waking and she's never cared about things like that before and now it's all she cares about.

Still, here, now, the tide rushes in and out against the shore, and she watches it for a while—how long exactly, she isn't sure, but no matter how long she stares out towards it, unblinking, she doesn't get that same feeling of drowning and wanting to drown, the desire to get lost forever ironically lost to her now.

Grace closes her eyes, takes a deep, deep breath until her lungs ache in the best way.

“Grace?” Frankie mumbles behind her, voice slurred with sleep. “Where you going?”

Grace turns away from the view, feels something foreign tugging at her insides when she looks at Frankie sprawled out on the couch still half-asleep. 

“Nowhere, Frankie,” she says. “I'm not going anywhere. I'm just making sure all the doors are locked.”

“Mmkay,” Frankie sighs, stretching out a little, eyes closed. “Then come back here. You make a really good pillow. You'd think no, because of how bony you are, but you really just...” She waves a hand dumbly in the air. “You pull through, Grace. You make it work. You're so reliable. Reliable Grace.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Grace says blandly as she tiptoes back, abandoning the beach and the ocean for the woman on the couch. “Go back to sleep, Frankie. I'll stay here.”

“Good,” Frankie mutters, tucking her head against Grace's shoulder again as she joins her, folds herself up – legs underneath, arms tucked close, fingers warm against the backs of her knees until Frankie, with eyes closed and mouth a little open, reaches over and takes her hands and holds them. “Night, Grace.”

Grace squeezes, and leans in, and closes her eyes and presses her lips to Frankie's temple, because what else would she possibly do, what else could she possibly do. “Goodnight, Frankie.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Oh, you know.”

Grace sighs. “ _I love you._ Now go to sleep. And if you keep grinning like that I'm just going to push you off this couch and we'll see how happy you are then.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Frankie says delightedly, but she can feel the puffs of warm breath against her neck and the curve of Frankie's lips and she knows the grin hasn't really disappeared.

Grace thinks (confesses, really, because it's just her and her own mind and it isn't like anyone else will know) that she hadn't really wanted it to, anyway.

“I can feel that,” she grumbles. “ _Sleep._ ”

“Fine, fine. Grace?”

“What?”

“I love you too.” A pause – “Aha. Now _you're_ the one grinning, huh?”

“Frankie?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> nick: you're a lesbian, grace  
> grace, reenacting the surprised pikachu meme: i'm WHAT


End file.
